The Streak Goes on: Aquawomen Stay Perfect

The Harvard women's water polo team ended its regular season with an impressive 18-0 record after capturing the MIT Invitational over the weekend.

The Crimson defeated Brown, MIT, Amherst, Queens and MIT a second time with scores of 13-6, 17-7, 10-7, 16-8, and 12-10, respectively.

The win over Queens was particularly significant for Harvard because it almost guarantees the team the number-two seed for the Eastern Championships to be held in two weeks at Bucknell University in Lewiston, Pa.

Bucknell had defeated Queens by four points earlier in the season. This meant that the Crimson had to defeat Queens by four points or more to be seeded number two behind Slippery Rock.

Going into the fourth period in the Queens game, Harvard was up by no more and no less than four points with the score of 10-6. "In my mind, the score was tied," Coach Chris Hafferty said.

The Crimson, however, pulled away in the final quarter and won the crucial game, 16-8.

"We're one of the more complete teams that I have coached in four years at Harvard," said Hafferty, who was especially proud of the way the two goalies, Karen Flick and Mel Berger, handled their jobs.

"Our goalies have continued to improve throughout the season and our success in offense stems from our confidence in defense," Hafferty said.

"Our defense is shutting out the other teams," Co-Captain Stacey Moran said. "You can tell by the scores. I am very happy about the way we are playing."

Besides the defense, Moran was pleased with the fact that the team is communicating much better now than ever before.

"We've come a long way," said Eileen Pratt, the other co-captain. "Throughout the season, after each invitational, we found problems and we tried to fix these problems during the following week."

In the past, the team has worked on improving defense, counter-attack, and, this week, playing in a narrow pool. Harvard is a fast team, and therefore has a disadvantage playing in smaller pools like the one at MIT. The Crimson's performance at MIT shows that its work has come to fruition.

Harvard also tried to improve its outside shooting in preparation for the Brown game. Because the Bruins are very tight in their inside defense, they only leave their opponents with outside shooting.

"We had problems with that kind of defense before, but we handled it beautifully this time," Hafferty said.

The Crimson takes this weekend off before traveling to Bucknell. Harvard's number-two seed will give it an edge in Easterns, where the Crimson hopes to qualify for the national championships, which will be held in Santa Barbara, Calif., in May.

"This team has surprised me this year," Hafferty said. "If you asked me [about Harvard's chances of making the national tournament] at the beginning of the season, I would have said no. But now, I would say that we definitely have an opportunity."